Without financial capacity or sports emergencies, Espanyol expects a fairly quiet winter market. If there is no unexpected move in the form of a last minute exit or the arrival of a trade agreement to increase revenue, it is likely that the white-and-blue entity will close this window of sign-ups with the only movement of the cession of Alvaro Vadillo to Malaga.
Although in recent hours, according to ARA, some representatives have offered the club players such as Samu Castillejo, from Milan, Espanyol currently has no operations underway for this January market. This does not mean that the possibility that some movement may end up occurring by 31 January has been completely ruled out. It would, however, be a last-minute market opportunity, as happened in the summer with Yangel Herrera. “The sports area is working to see if there are any exits or changes, but the truth is that at the moment we have no financial margin to face any incorporation,” say sources from the entity, who point to a double difficulty to be able to face signings throughout this month.
On the one hand, Espanyol has a negative salary cap, a situation that the club might solve this winter. On the other hand, the budget for the current year, 2021-22, does not allow certain financial joys, as it predicts a loss of 8.9 million, which would be added to those obtained in the 2020-21 season (11 , 4 million). These figures from the entity say that they serve to generate “a realistic expectation” of the club’s possibilities in this market.
It should be remembered that to achieve these figures, Espanyol budgeted sales of 20 million euros for this year. The club has already squandered just over a million euros with operations such as the departure of Mateo Joseph to Leeds United and through the solidarity mechanism, with the club changes of Pau López, Pol Lirola and Mamadou Sylla. However, he will still need more than $ 18 million in football operations by June 30.
Speaking of sports, the comfortable situation of Espanyol in the League – with 26 points, one more than the 25 with which he came down two seasons ago – means that Vicente Moreno’s men do not have any great sporting urgency. In addition to the 24 first team players, the coach of Massanassa has a good handful of players from the branch. This year, without going any further, he has already used seven: Joan Garcia, Jofre Carreras, Álvaro García, Max Svensson, Lluís Recasens, Rubén Sánchez and Gori, before suffering a serious injury.
Seventh January with Chen
This is the seventh winter market since the arrival of Chen Yansheng at Espanyol. During the different months of January with the Chinese leader, the white-and-blue entity has added 11 players (in exchange for 49.2 million) and got rid of 15 (for 6.5 million). Of the previous six, only one winter, in 2017, Espanyol was left without signing. With the exception of the effort made in 2020 (when 43 million was spent on De Tomás, Embarba, Cabrera and Oier), most winter markets with Chen have been low-profile in terms of additions: Duarte and Arlauskis in 2016; Carlos Sánchez in 2018; Ferreyra, Wu Lei and Semedo in 2019, and Dimata in 2021.
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